Hailey Nguyen/The Cougar
As the fall semester began, the University of Houston removed 133 courses from its core curriculum to comply with Senate Bill 37, which requires public universities to review their general education curricula. UH’s core curriculum consists of 42 credit hours across subject areas including creative arts, language, philosophy and mathematics.
The UH Board of Regents has attributed the curriculum cuts to low enrollment or courses that were no longer being offered. However, the courses removed from the core include classes focused on Islam, the Bible and Greek culture, as well as “Introduction to Women’s Studies,” “Introduction to Asian Studies” and “Black Liberation Theology.”
Richard Armstrong, director of classical studies, said, “Curriculum needs reviewing, I certainly don’t deny that, but this is supposed to be a conversation among educators.” A comparison of the 2025-26 and 2026-27 core curricula shows that several of the removed courses focused on gender, race, culture and theology.
When theology, gender and racial discourse are placed at risk in the curriculum, we must ask: What does the state consider to be general knowledge? More importantly, as these curricular changes continue to reshape the humanities, we must also ask: What does the state consider general knowledge?
Education gaps: From society to workforce
SB 37 gives governing boards greater authority over university curricula and requires institutions to review their general education requirements. For UH, complying with those requirements meant reconsidering which courses would remain part of the core curriculum.
The new requirements call for core courses to prepare students for civic and professional life, including participation in the workforce and the betterment of society. The concern is whether workforce preparation will increasingly outweigh the broader educational purpose of these courses.
As priorities shift, the question has increasingly moved from “Who am I becoming?” to “What am I producing?” This shift is increasingly reflected in higher education, where society places greater emphasis on economic utility and production.
This reflects an increasingly narrow understanding of what a college education is supposed to accomplish. Under this approach, courses that examine gender, race, religion, culture or history can be dismissed as peripheral because their value is not always immediately quantifiable.
Higher education has historically aimed to prepare students for civic life, not solely the workforce. Writing for the Association of American Colleges and Universities, Roger L. Geiger argues that universities have long served as spaces for open inquiry, research and the development of educated citizens.
In reality, understanding the historical and social forces that shape our community is practical and directly applicable knowledge. Understanding how race and racial inequality have shaped American institutions, how gender influences social expectations and how religion has shaped political and cultural life gives students tools to better understand the society they are entering.
As students prepare for life after college, is it more valuable to know how to be a good worker or to understand the world in which they work? In this case, we should be wary of reducing education to only what is useful in the workplace.
Producing workers or educating citizens?
Low enrollment alone should not determine whether a course has educational value. The Board could have incorporated broader faculty and student feedback when determining which courses remained relevant to the core curriculum.
Although faculty participated in the review process, broader student input could have helped determine which courses students considered valuable to their general education.
It is important to note that the cuts did not eliminate the study of race, gender or culture altogether. Instead, the cuts changed which approaches to these subjects were considered foundational.
While AAS 2330, “Black Liberation Theology,” at the intersection of race, religion, history and political thought was removed, HIST 2365, “African Civilization Since 1750,” remained. Courses that encouraged more intersectional approaches were, in this case, among those removed from the core.
This distinction brings us back to the larger purpose of a university education: not simply what students are taught, but what they are being prepared to understand. The question is no longer which courses belong in a university’s core curriculum, but what we believe a university education should prepare students to become.
If college education is reduced to producing workers, we risk graduates entering the workforce without understanding the world they have entered.
opinion@thedailycougar.com
